Mountain Biking - Are RockShox Dart 3 SL unreliable?

I just went to pick up a Specialized Rockhopper I found on sale and when I got there I found out that I couldn't get ether of the 2 bikes they had in the store because the forks on both bikes were bad. They had a kit to fix one and are going to let me know when it is done. The salesman told me that the repair kits are out of stock with the company. I know this isn't a top of the line shock, but I would expect them to last more then the few test rides in a parking lot these have been through.

Jesster1

Actually, Rock Shox just recalled a bunch of the Darts, which I'm guessing is the reason.

The hundreds we have sold have been preety decent in terms of reliability

i thought a bunch had gotten a deffective rebound cartridge that caused them to leak oil, and if you got one of these it was more of a defect than not being reliable, so once a good cartridge is in place it should be pretty bommer, and thats only an issue if you get a dud, which sounds like you did but it got caught super early so w/e

Well that is good to know. I hope they can get this taken care of today so I can pick it up and play with it tonight. If they can't get this shock fixed what would be a good shock to replace it with? I don't have a huge budget for this and don't need top of the line. I have no idea what the order is of shcoks so any help would be great.

Jesster1

personally i find the whole fork thing really frustrating, when you look at weight and specs and then ride on diff forks you end up really wantding a really nice one, and there isn't much of a middle ground, so of course the rock shox reba, and the fox f100 or w/e size u need are awesome forks, and the dart is nice and cheep, finding somthin in the middle is a bit tough, the rock shox recon seems to be a bit nicer than the dart, but it is still pretty heavy, the marzocchi dirt jumper 3 is also supposed to be a really solid really nice feeling fork that has good performance for a low price, but once again its heavy, now of course the recon and the dirt jumper aren't any heavier than the dart, but if you are getting a new fork it kinda changes the standards imo

edit: hmm i just looked up the recon and it is lighter and more expensive than i remembered, so that may be a good choice if you are willing to pay for it, at least its not over 600 like the fox, or 800 like the corsa

I would think that a lot of the Marzocchi's would cover the middle ground.

Where is the info on this recall?

Well I got the rockhopper with the dart 3 repaired and I have to say that there is a world of difference between when I test road it and now that its working the way it is supposed to. Got the bike home and headed out into the hay field behind the house with my 8 year old. Man did we have fun. Now to do some work about there and in the small timber I own and we are going to have a fun little single track.

Jesster1

to my knowlege there was no recall, it was just that some had this one part that just completely sucked and caused problems in some of the forks and that if you saw your fork leek oil and/or your lockout stopped working you took it too your lbs and they would pop in a new cartrige and to my knowlege there hasn't been a problem with the replacement cartriges, exept that so many forks had problems that sram apparently ran out of kits ot fix em

^^^ i just never like those marzocchis like the mx series and all that,